How to Get Back on the Writing Wagon

by Miranda on February 19, 2015

Cathy Yardley is an author, mother, and the brains behind Rock Your Writing, a terrific online resource for novelists. Cathy’s ebooks and audiobooks — Rock Your Plot, Rock Your Revisions, Rock Your Query, and Write Every Day — are full of accessible, well-grounded strategies. While Cathy’s focus is genre fiction, writers across the board will benefit from her advice. (I keep the audio versions of Rock Your Plot and Write Every Day in my Audible app for frequent hits of inspiration.) Writers among the Studio Mothers audience will appreciate the article in Cathy’s latest newsletter, which is reprinted below, with Cathy’s generous permission. Enjoy!

Ah, February. The month when the shiny, sexy promise of New Year’s resolutions turns into the dreaded “morning after” of everyday life… when the dream meets the routine.

Suddenly, getting up at 5:00 am every morning to bang out a few pages isn’t as enticing as staying under your warm covers. You’ll do the pages at night, you promise yourself, tapping the snooze button.

But you have a hell of a time at the day job, you find out your son’s book report is actually due tomorrow and he hasn’t started, you’re out of dog food, and you’ve got no idea what you’re making for dinner.

By the time everyone who needs to be is fed and in bed, it’s nearly 11:00, you’ve got all the energy of a dead car battery, and your creativity resembles a fossilized raisin.

Next thing you know, you rationalize: I’ll just double the pages I write tomorrow.

After “doubling” to the point where you’d need to write 20 pages in one day to catch up, you find yourself passively or actively avoiding writing altogether.

You’ve fallen off the writing wagon — and you’re not quite sure how to get back on.

“No plan survives contact with the enemy.” — Helmuth von Moltke

If this sounds familiar, fear not. You are in good company (to the tune of 95% of the writers I know). If you want to get back on track (and stay there), here are some tips that might help:

Set the bar really low and hit it out of the park.

The first way to “pull out of the spin” is to simply do something. Write a page, or 250 words. It’s relatively small, but it’s also substantial. (In 400 days, a series of 250 words turns into a 100K word draft!)

If you can’t do 250 words, do 100. If you can’t do that, write a paragraph. But do something small, and then celebrate that accomplishment.

That may seem ridiculous, but you’re not doing this for the milestone. You’re doing this to start re-training your brain to think “action, momentum, result, reward.” Not “disappointment, exhaustion, discouragement, aversion.”

Mindfully adjust.

The word “mindful” gets kicked around a lot, and can seem awfully Zen and mystic. It isn’t. It’s just another way of saying “pay really close attention without being judgmental.” In other words, instead of beating yourself up for not writing (which will drain your energy), just go “Huh. So that didn’t work. What happened instead?”

Again: no judgment. It won’t help you. There isn’t even an inherent benefit to it. It’s not like the world will think you’re a better person because you felt guilty.

Just the facts. You didn’t write. As I explain in my ebook Write Every Day, it’s usually a time issue, an energy issue, a fear issue, or a process issue. Be a detective. Determine what the issue is (or issues, plural) and then create an action plan to address it and keep moving.

Get support.

There are a few different kinds of support.

You can have critique support. One benefit to this: actually showing someone your work, which in turn encourages you to complete and hand something off. Hopefully, you will also receive valuable input and hone your writing skills, as well.

You can have accountability support. You don’t need a writer for this. This is just someone you tell your goal to, someone you report in with on a weekly basis, to make sure you’re staying on track. If you need a boot camp-styled “drill instructor” or a “loving supportive mentor,” match your personal motivating style. The wrong mix (you need gentle, comforting motivation, and you’ve got somebody yelling on your voice mail “WHERE ARE THOSE PAGES?”) will actually derail you faster.

You can have mentoring support. That can be check in with a coach, or taking a class.

Finally, you can have emotional support. Going to writing groups where you actually feel energized because people are talking shop, may be an option. Or simply connecting with a group of other people who are pursuing big goals and who are cheering each other on might be helpful.

If you’re lucky, you’ll find a combination of several kinds of support in the same person. However it works, it’s very difficult to accomplish your writing goals without support of some kind.

I cannot tell you how much I needed to read this post – it has given me the kick up the arse I needed. Life throws so many punches sometimes, its hard to keep on track. Am off to write some words now…. loved this. Thank you.

Great post. I’ve now done up a timetable and am trying to write a bit everyday or research publishers, competitions, grants etc (to do with writing). I had a go at the NaNoWriMo last year which was great and really gave me a the push that I needed. Didn’t make it to 50 000 but have 25 000 to work with so far. Thanks for the info about critique partners. 🙂

This is a great article; I’m an aspiring writer and this post has some great tips! I hope that I can find more posts like this. I tend to procrastinate on my writing, and even though I’m not a mom, high school life is also very busy for me. Thank you for the help!

welcome!

Great to see you! Studio Mothers is the blog community of Miranda Hersey Creativity Coaching. Writer? Artist? Musician? Performer? You’re in the right place. While we primarily focus on the issues that creative mothers encounter, all are welcome.

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